


Drowns the Love

by peterdonaldson



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Past Character Death, mentions of abuse, mentions of child abuse, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:35:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterdonaldson/pseuds/peterdonaldson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Please leave me alone.' It's barely a whisper, but he knows he's been heard. He is met with nothing but silence. 'Fine. Kill me, then. Please. You did it to the rest of them.' Merdred, canon!verse alternate plot. 3 parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You left my soul bleeding in the dark  
> So you could be king  
> Rules you set are still untold to me and I lost my faith in everything  
> The nights you could cope, your intentions were gold  
> But the mountains will shake  
> I need to know I can still make  
> Explosions.
> 
> \- _Ellie Goulding, Explosions_

His cheeks are a dull crimson, blotchy against the pallor of the rest of his face, and his breath is opaque on the icy air as he drags his numb feet through the thick snow. His clothes are drenched and his hair is sopping, flinging water every time he turns his head. Only his eyes are completely dry, but they are also completely empty, devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

There is nothing and nowhere to be reached if he continues on this path. He walks it anyway.

He doesn't feel the cold. His nerves are still ringing with scorching heat, the heat of only an hour ago, when he stood next to the fire, ash blowing in his eyes, and watched his world come crashing down.

The world is white.

His ragged scarf flutters around his neck, and he pulls at it, fingers scrabbling repetitively as the ringing spreads from his nerves to his ears and doesn't stop. A hole appears after a while, his thumb poking through, and as he yanks his hand down the scarf comes down with it.

He lets it drop to the ground without a thought. It stands out against the pure snow, staining it like the blood of an animal, but he doesn't see because he doesn't look back. Eventually the snow will melt, and it will drop to the ground, dirtied and torn and trodden on, and it will become part of the earth. But not he. If he's learnt anything this past hour, it's that he's the one who carries on.

The first night he tries to keep walking, but the third time he trips and falls he just lies in the snow, freezing and pale and wishing for death. By morning, it has not come, and so he continues to walk. But he sleeps under trees or in caves after that.

Eventually, he realises he cannot walk much further without nutrition of some sort. He knows he could kill a rabbit with the blink of an eye, have it cooked and ready for eating in another, but the mere thought of using magic weighs his mind down to even further depths. Instead, he pulls out a small silver dagger, and waits in silence for the animal to come past. He wounds it on the first stab, kills it with the second, and it almost makes him laugh that he can stay still _now_ , can kill _now_ , just when he doesn't really need to. After all, the only purpose this rabbit serves is to keep him alive, and that is barely a purpose at all. Not any more.

It takes a week for him to realise he's being followed. He hates himself for the weakness, because the blanket of snow makes it impossible for anyone to hide, but something is managing it. And he walks with this knowledge, not doing anything about it and hating himself even more, which is so _exhausting_. He listens to the rustling in the night, sees the shape dart out of the corner of his eye, and it's so tiring, so hard to just ignore, that eventually he stops.

They stop behind him, and for the longest time they just stand there. Merlin cannot bear the thought of turning around, because he knows what he will see and he knows it will hurt more than anything else has so far.

So instead, he speaks, for the first time since that awful day.

'Please leave me alone.'

It's barely a whisper, but he knows he's been heard. He is met with nothing but silence.

'Fine. Kill me, then. Please. You did it to the rest of them.'

Silence again. He shuts his eyes in resignation, binds what's left of his heart together, and turns around.

Of course, it hurts, and he'd never have expected it not to. But any fragile walls he's built up crumble and slide, and there's just raw desperation as he looks into the face of the murderer that ripped his world to pieces and scattered them at his feet.

They stare at each other. Neither of them blinks. And as he searches the beautiful, cruel face, pure, white-hot hatred boils up inside Merlin until he's gasping for breath.

'You destroyed everything.'

Those perfect eyes do not so much as blink.

'You took everything away from me. You knew, and you did it anyway.'

Nothing.

'I watched them burn. I watched every single one of them burn and I couldn't even die with them.'

He trembles as the memories wash over him, the melted armour and the puddles of blood, the disfigured children barely able to open their eyes and the skinless dragon lying dead in the centre of the throne room.

And finally, there are tears.

He falls to his knees as they pour down his face, clutching at his hair and tearing at is clothes. He falls apart in front of the one person he could never forgive, and Mordred watches, his face expressionless.

' _Why?_ '

The word escapes his lips. He doesn't mean for it to.

For a moment, his companion is as noiseless as he's been so far. Then, without any warning, Merlin feels arms lift him from the ground and carry him forwards. God knows he has no dignity left, and so he collapses into the hold and weeps. Some part of him wrestles weakly for his silver dagger for a moment, but a stronger hand than his closes over it and takes it away. He tries not to inhale, but the man still has the scent of death and smoke around him, and that's when he starts to scream.

Mordred does not react with anything more than a sigh. Instead, he keeps walking as though the writhing form of Merlin in his arms is nothing more solid than air. Merlin screams and screams and screams, the images in front of his eyes not of the snow-capped landscape but of a king sat on what is left of his throne, burnt to a cinder, with the crumbling remains of his child across his lap. And eventually, when there is no breath left in his lungs, he passes out.

***

The crackling of a fire wakes him. He feels heat shoot through his veins, and his eyes fly open, certain he's back in the courtyard again. His mouth opens, about to scream again, but before he can get the sound out there's a hand over his mouth.

'No.'

That voice makes him want to scream even more. He stares wild-eyed at Mordred, hands flailing, but the stronger wins out.

'No. There are many still out there, and my magic cannot protect us both. Not after… that day. I was drained a little more than I feel comfortable with.'

 _Why are you trying to protect me?!_ Merlin tries to shout, but the hand refuses to leave his mouth.

'I am trying to protect you because, believe it or not, none of this was meant to happen, and those like you and I are few enough as it is.'

Merlin doesn't even notice the hand has been removed from his mouth. He is too full of shock. It has been so long since he's had another's mind invade his head, and it hurts.

He opens his mouth to speak, but Mordred silences him with a look. There is ice and contempt in his eyes, but also a softness that strikes Merlin as bizarre. He squints as the face in front of him begins to blur, and his head lolls back as he slumps to the ground. He's so tired, and starving. And no sooner has the thought been formed, than that now-familiar hand is gripping the back of his neck and pulling him upright.

'Eat.'

It's an order, not a request.

The broth is good, better than anything Gaius used to cook him and certainly more edible than the meals he's managed to scrape together the past week. But then, the man who sits across from him was brought up a druid, and knows nature in a way Merlin could never learn.

Mordred seems to have brought everything he could need with him. Exactly how he's been carrying it all on his back, and how he even got it out of Camelot is a mystery to Merlin – the rush to get out of the castle would have taken even the most prepared by surprise – but he refuses to speak to him unless absolutely necessary. No words are needed, if their connection does still exist – and so far, it appears to – but Merlin's thoughts are still consumed with fire and pain, the death of a king, his child and countless others. But he does not think he will cry again. Those tears have been shed because they needed to be, but now he feels empty once more. Just a hollow, desperate hatred for the man who ripped up his world.

Sleep does not come as easily tonight, although he doesn't know why. He fears nothing from Mordred, death would be sweet relief and pain would feel like nothing more that what he deserves. For not committing the one murder he should have, and saving them all.

In the morning, he is woken by a thought.

_We must leave, Emrys. We must stay ahead._

He follows his follower blindly, despising him with every inch of his being and yet still relying on him in some sick fashion. They walk the same distance every day, Mordred seeming to have a fixed destination in mind. Merlin finds this amusing in a dark sense, knowing there is nothing in this direction, and keeping it well hidden. The silence between them is never broken, anything the other needs to know passed through their connection. Mordred feeds them, perhaps aware of the knowledge Merlin gained during his time with Gaius about poisonous plants.

They see no one else. Merlin wonders why Mordred is so worried.

One day, Merlin wakes up to find the land completely green, every last trace of snow gone. It astonishes him, to see such purity and goodness all around him, because he never thought anything could ever be good again. As he lies back, feeling almost content for once, he notices the tree branches above him and is jerked back into one of his many memories of hiding with Arthur in the woods. Running from hooded men, chasing bandits and all manner of magical folk – the beautiful simplicity of those days fills him with the deepest longing he's ever known. Back when his magic had still been a secret, and Arthur had trusted him implicitly. Thinking of Arthur of course drags back the night of so many deaths, but unlike other times, Merlin cannot hold the thoughts back this time.

_He runs through the castle. He has to find Arthur, has to tell him about Morgana, and about Mordred's true plans. The boy in question is already in the throne room, ready to commit the treacherous act, ready to destroy them all, because Merlin had been unable to stab that knife two hours ago after learning the plans for himself._

_The wooden doors do not give, but one look and his eyes glow yellow, bursting them open._

_The dragon lies on the floor, its head nuzzling at Morgana's cold body. Arthur's face is wet with tears as he looks at his sister, but his hands are steady as he raises the sword to stab the creature. Gwen holds their child tightly as she stands behind her husband, covers their eyes to stop them from seeing this terrible bloodshed. And Arthur's loyal knights, his men, stand solidly as one by his side, not knowing that one of their own plots the end of them all in just a few short moments._

_Merlin's scream of 'No!' reaches Arthur's ears just as the sword comes crashing down._

_The room explodes. A burning light emanates from the creature in the centre of the room, lifting Merlin off his feet and slamming him against a wall. Fire licks at his skin, and he claws at the stone, screaming until the flames enter his mouth and fry his tongue. The burning heat must surely be charring his skin off, because how could any living creature survive this? Pain, exquisite pain slices through his body and freezes him to the spot, unable to escape, unable to do anything other than feel. He sees nothing and hears nothing. He feels only agony._

_Eventually, it must stop. And it does. He opens his eyes in a daze, casts a swift glance around the room, and vomits all over the floor._

_Everything is dead. The knights who stood so tall and proud only minutes ago are reduced to a pile of blackened charcoal and soft, melted armour. The queen lies a short distance away, still in one piece but as utterly unrecognisable as her brother and his companions. The dragon is still whole, but skinless and dead, bleeding out onto the body of Morgana, who despite being the closest to the furnace is completely clean and pure, untarnished by the heat. Merlin notices he too is unmarked, and wonders vaguely why he was saved, but then his eyes fall on Arthur and there is no room for anything in his mind but horror and the feeling that his insides are pouring out of him._

_The king is on his throne. Something must have moved him there, because he was standing metres away when his sword fell onto the disfigured creature at his feet. His child, the beautiful, unnamed baby cherished by so many, lies on his lap. Both of them are as charred as if they had burned in hell's flames, and yet their garments remain. They, clearly, must be recognisable. Arthur's crown sits on the remains of his head, making a mockery of his misunderstanding of the situation, and the baby is still wrapped in swaddling blankets bearing the royal crest. Merlin staggers to his feet, sickened to his core, and runs for the door, unable to look back or think of anything but how this is all his fault, all of it…_

_Some escaped the flames that wreaked the castle. They stand in the courtyard, bleeding profusely, but alive. His eyes cannot linger long on the faces of the children, burnt and swollen and disfigured, and he runs._

_Mordred did this. Every single death is his burden. He killed them all, and now he is nowhere to be found._

_Merlin knows why he did it. But he cannot understand, not in a single cell of his body. He will never forgive this, and he can never begin to express the desperate cry for the blood of this ruthless killer that he feels welling inside him._

_The rage doesn't last. Hollow emptiness takes its place as he begins to leave the castle behind, and the cold takes over. Now all he wishes for is death._

A sudden scream rends the air, pulls Merlin back into the present. He sits up, hands rubbing his face, and his head twisting round, but he soon recognises the yell as that of Mordred. A sickening satisfaction fills him, and a twisted smile spreads across his face. Perhaps the man is meeting his death this second, and Merlin will listen to it vengefully, thinking of those he could never save.

But the screaming doesn't stop. Soon he cannot bear it. It sounds too much like the inside of his head after that horrifying day.

Getting to his feet, he follows the sound, wincing as it gets louder and more pained. He cannot bear the sound of pain anymore. No matter who feels it.

Rounding a clump of trees, he spots a clearing, and a figure standing in the centre. There is just one tree next to the man, and it is raw and damaged. Mordred's sword hangs heavy in his hand, and large chunks of wood litter the ground around him. His face is red, and his eyes are streaming.

Merlin's mind does not quite join the images together before Mordred raises his sword and slices it towards the tree.

It is thick and old, and will not fall. But Mordred hacks at it anyway, face swollen with tears as he screams.

Merlin approaches him silently. Mordred doesn't notice him until he is right behind him, and whips around, eyes wild and sword raised.

'Why are you doing this?'

Merlin's voice is quiet. To see the man he hates reduced to this is jarring, and he is curious.

' _This wasn't supposed to happen_ ,' snarls his companion. 'Did you honestly think I would condone _this?_ '

A sharp bark of a laugh resonates through the clearing, and Merlin sees a hint of the old insanity he saw in Morgana reflected in the young man's eyes.

'They lied to me. The dragon dies, Morgana dies, everybody dies. _Everybody dies!_ And you, you stay. You always stay. Why do you always stay? No, no matter, you are of no importance anymore. The world I needed to exist is gone now. I must kill Arthur, I mustn't kill Arthur, my destiny is gone. How much of it was true, Emrys? Why did they lie to me? _I didn't want any of this_.'

He sinks to his knees, the icy demeanour he has displayed until so recently shattered and gone. Merlin watches, fascinated, as the druid boy cries into the leaves. Clearly, this has been inside him the whole time. The fragile self he had managed to hold together has broken, possibly at Merlin's remembrance of events, and now he has fallen over the edge.

This isn't the cruel killer Merlin has travelled with. This is a little boy lied to, and used, and betrayed, and altogether more human than Merlin has ever seen him. It is impossible for him not to pity the shivering shell upon the forest ground. There is no forgiveness in the sorcerer's eyes as he looks upon the shuddering body, but his eyes light up and he is able to carry his enemy back to their rudimentary camp.

Grief requires rest. Merlin knows this from the exhaustion he felt before. So he watches Mordred's fitful sleep, and although this is the perfect opportunity to slaughter him like a pig, he does not. He simply watches, because maybe this boy is as broken as he is. Besides, he is still curious, and he needs to know of these forces that lied. Even if the liar turns out to be Mordred after all. As the sky darkens, he lights the fire, and impales the remains of a rabbit he had eaten the previous day on a sharp stick to heat it.

For the first time in a week, he breathes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My my, cold hearted child, tell me how you feel  
> Just a blade in the grass, spoke unto the wheel  
> My, my, cold hearted child, tell me where it's all gone  
> The lustre of your bones, those arms that held you strong  
> \- _Ben Howard, The Fear_

Mordred is already awake when Merlin stirs the next morning, eyes red but face set. The walls that shattered so easily last night have been rebuilt, and his hands are steady as he smothers the embers with leaves. He does not acknowledge Merlin with more than a glance, and they are on their way before the birds have stopped singing. Merlin looks around at the landscape, noticing how beautifully the hills have remained green and welcoming. However, it seems as though the loss of the snow has sapped Mordred of his composure. His icy façade has completely vanished, he stumbles over rocks and more than once he stops as though completely lost, running a hand through dishevelled hair and circling markers of wood or stone. Merlin never comments when this happens, but instead stands to the side and marvels at the change in the man he thought he understood.  
No. That’s not right. He could never understand such ruthless cruelty, or such heartless selfishness.  
The road grows less trodden as they continue. Merlin has stopped wondering where they are headed, for he knows Mordred will not tell him and is honestly past caring. Besides, the walking gives him a purpose, stops his mind from wandering too far into the past. He knows cannot afford to lose his head again, to expose himself to Mordred’s madness. Because he is fairly sure, now, that that is what it is. The obsessive need to cover exact distance, the anger at sudden and small obstructions, the constant circling – all of it reveals to Merlin how unhinged his companion has become.  
That, and the screaming which accompanies each evening.  
Every night, Merlin is awakened by the same mad cries he had witnessed for the first time only days ago. It happens so often now, he has formed a sort of routine. He sits when he wakes, draws his knees up, and locks his eyes at the writhing form across the dying flames. Mordred shrieks as though he is a child, and perhaps inside his head he still is. Merlin recalls the words he spoke to him years ago, and shivers.  
 _‘I shall never forgive this, Emrys. And I shall never forget.’_  
This boy committed harsh murder in childhood. He witnessed despicable things, true, but the number of lives – bright, beautiful, half lived lives – that he has brought to an end merit no mercy. And yet Merlin has grown accustomed to the ache of pity in his stomach as he watches the unconscious boy twisting wildly, face contorted in pain. He himself is no stranger to nightmares, especially since the day of the dragon. But his paralyse him, hold him still, and affect no one but himself. Mordred’s pain is tangible, and it frightens him.  
And then it happens.  
On one particularly restless night, he is sat in his usual position, body having long grown used to the lack of sleep. He waits for the screams to die down, focusing more on the embers of the fire than the noise. But his eyes fly upwards at a jolt of sound, and he sees Mordred shoot upright. He turns to Merlin, and his eyes are glowing – not with magic, but with something far darker. His face is feral, agonised, and Merlin is repelled. He backs away, hands scrabbling in the dirty ground, but then Mordred’s eyes hollow out and he lies still again. Merlin exhales, for a moment thinking it was nothing more than a result of his fatigue, and then –  
His eyes feel as though they are burning. He leaps to his feet and tries blindly to run, but trips at the first tree root he comes across. He lies there, tears leaking from his eyes as he watches, helplessly, the images rolling across his vision.  
Mordred’s nightmares, it seems, are not unwarranted. Not if these cruel, vicious images are anything to go by.  
Merlin watches Mordred grow up inside his head, horrified. He sees everything, as the pale druid child he had known grows to become the knight of Camelot. Sees the cold, dark cavern, sees the long glinting knives, hears the hiss of hot metal on flesh. And he cries, the torture of a small boy unravelling before his eyes.  
He has never seen evil like this. And he watched the unnecessary slaughter of a peace dragon.  
The hooded, shapeless men bring the druid boy pain every time they come. And then they instruct him, teach him unspeakable things and force him to recite them while the sweat and blood still leaks out of his skin. After a while, he doesn’t cry anymore. And then the men stop the torture. Instead, what they begin to do is lie.  
And Mordred, sick, injured Mordred, listens to every word they say, and believes them.  
They present him with false scrolls, tell him they are ancient spells. Tell him that they have foreseen the birth of a pure white dragon (which Merlin can only suppose is true), and that the death of it at the hand of a king will bring endless power to those who would wield it for the benefit of all magical creatures. They train his body first and then his magic, fine tune it until he reaches a point where he is no longer a boy, but a machine. A dangerously intelligent killing machine, but the worst kind - one who does not know it.  
Mordred understands that Morgana must die, and embraces it, for it will mean freedom for his people.  
And then Merlin sees the throne room again, through the satisfied eyes of one who knows his task is nearly complete. He watches as the sword is raised, as it falls – and then nothing but mind numbing horror envelopes him as he is blasted back and realises he was never more than a chess piece to be used, and then disposed of.  
Merlin forces his eyes to open, raising shaking eyes to his cheeks and finding them wet. He stumbles to his feet, arms splaying out to steady his balance, and leans against a tree, breathing heavily. He is so disgusted, with the world and with himself, the former because he cannot believe that there are creatures so vile crawling this earth that they are able to relish the torture of a little boy, and the latter because he has judged – with the best of intentions, to be fair, but judged all the same. Staggering back to their campsite, he wonders how he had never seen this in Mordred’s thoughts before, but then he remembers that he has made it his business not to poke around in the brain he believed to have conceived the plan which had destroyed his life. He had wanted no part of it, and now he hates himself for it.  
He has not forgiven Mordred. Nothing close to it. But he thinks he understands, finally, and it’s an odd relief to know _why_ his old enemy had found it in himself to do something so terrible. He was programmed. Merlin has seen this kind of manipulation before. As he heads down the slope that leads to their camp, he tells himself to confront Mordred about this, because he needs to know who these men are. He has to know, because then he can find them, and then he can kill them.  
Of course, his life is one giant mess, he’s known that for years and should really be used to it y now, but the sight of the empty campsite still manages to sink his stomach to the soles of his feet. At first, he merely thinks Mordred has deserted him, and sighs in frustration, but then his eyes flicker to a telltale notch in a tree and the odd dispersal of leaves across the ground, and he knows that Mordred has been taken. His heart rate quickens – the key to avenging the deaths of so many he’s loved has been taken from him, and he cannot let it slip away so easily.  
 _‘Mordred!’_ he shouts, and the anger is tangible in his voice.  
He is surprised by the speed of the response. A weak mumbling sound comes from a copse to his right, and he hurries to it, pushing aside leaves until he finds the barely conscious boy. His face is half soaked in blood, and a slit has been cut under his lip, weeping and swollen where the gag presses into it. The confident, secretive knight Merlin had known is gone, replaced by a trembling, paralysed shadow of a man.  
‘Tell me who they are. Tell me why they did this to you.’  
Mordred only shuts his eyes in agony.  
‘Mordred, tell me. I know they’ve hurt you before, I know they’ll do it again. You don’t have to protect them. Where are they?’  
The eyes that stare back at him are wild, and they register no understanding.  
Merlin feels an overwhelming urge to shake him, hard, but knowing how fragile the boy is already and not wishing to cause further damage, he resists. The pale skin seems so much like paper, easy to tear and shred, and the harsh metal armour he still wears looks as though it could pierce the translucent flesh in an instant. Merlin knows he must get up and locate the men, for they must be close, but as he starts to rise he feels a flash of regret. He doesn’t want to hunt them down, not right now. Because Mordred looks so weak and ill and the life is draining from him, rapidly, and maybe it’s sentimental nonsense but after what the boy has been through, Merlin cannot bring himself to allow him one single moment more of pain. But he shakes this off as irrational, and forces himself to his feet.  
They are there, stood waiting for him. Clearly, they do not know of his powers, had wanted to catch him not off guard, but feeling like he has a fighting chance. They walk towards him, smirks on their faces, and Merlin knows from the borrowed memories that these are mere henchmen, not the torturers he seeks. He has tried to abstain from magic since the dragon, but he does not think twice before his eyes light up and they are thrown back against the clump of trees.  
He hears all three necks crack, and does not flinch.  
Merlin swivels, steps back to the copse, and pushes back the leaves. Mordred’s eyes are barely open, and the gag that binds his mouth is turning brown as the blood dries. His face is a deathly white, and his fingers twitch in their rope bonds.  
Merlin feels sick.  
He clears the area around the boy, afraid of moving him for fear of what it would do to him. Although the memories of Gaius are painful, he digs around inside his brain for remedies, and eventually rudimentary bandages replace the ropes around Mordred’s wrists.  
The slit beneath his lip stays. Merlin cannot bear to touch it, and the material fibres still sit within it from the frayed gag.  
And this time, when Mordred opens his eyes, it is Merlin that says ‘Eat.’  
***  
They stay at this campsite for several days. Mordred is weak, and cold, and Merlin tries to remain patient, knows he cannot confront the boy about his past when he is already so ill. They do not talk at all, if they can help it. But now, Merlin allows himself to slowly, gently begin to examine Mordred’s mind.  
He finds it is composed of many layers. Confusion, betrayal, pain – they are the most recent, the most immediate, but beneath them there is loyalty and belief in his mission. There is also anger, much of that, and hatred – not for those who tortured him, but for those who he was programmed to hate. Merlin digs through all this, finds it hued in dark greys and browns, but then one day, he breaks through the final barrier and that’s it. Here is the real Mordred. Simplicity can sometimes be the way forwards, he notices, and manages to smile at the knowledge Arthur would probably have said something along those lines about him.  
Mordred’s true self does not have the same dark taste of grey about it. It is instead an intelligent, gentle blue, and it pulses with life. There is the innocence of the child he used to be locked up in there still, and a thirst for knowledge that Merlin would never have guessed existed. It is so much the opposite of what he expected, and yet so perfectly apt for the boy who lies healing in front of him, and he feels refreshed in an unusual way when he withdraws from the mind. But the next time he takes the opportunity to look, he does not have to fight to reach this layer.  
Almost as though Mordred is letting him in.  
After a week, the druid opens his eyes and focuses on Merlin in a way that makes him sure he is most definitely back in this world for good.  
 _‘Thank you,’_ he whispers, and Merlin – Merlin _smiles_.  
The next day, he sits up. The day after that, he helps Merlin kindle the fire, and offers to fetch more firewood.  
Merlin knows they should leave, now Mordred is strong enough to walk they must hunt down the manipulators, but he is too wrapped up in learning about this other man he knew nothing about to want to leave. He’s just starting to let the forgiveness settle in. He sees Mordred stumble with the wood, and finds himself on his feet to help him before he knows what he’s doing.  
He holds the branches while Mordred picks up the ones scattered across the leaves. When Mordred holds out his arms for the branches, Merlin does nothing.  
‘You saw.’  
He can only nod.  
‘You understand.’  
He does not even have to move his head.  
It’s funny, how being so close to someone makes you so aware of their breathing.  
They fall into each other without a word.  
***  
The fact that nothing _has_ to change is what motivates them. For they are a team now, the pair that so despised each other in the beginning, and they can change things because they _want_ to. Merlin has his life, Mordred his childhood – they will never get these things back, and they can choose to do nothing about that, if they wish. But they do not.  
The next day, Merlin puts out the fire, and Mordred collects their scarce possessions.  
Today, they both breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was open now I'm hidden  
> From the danger of his words  
> Have found a good position and I’ll play for what he's worth  
> And he will find  
> Nowhere left to hide.  
> \- _Hudson Taylor, Battles_

Hand clenched upon the slippery stone wall, Merlin tightens his other grip on his sword. He hears whispering at the end of the tunnel, and knows that he is so, so close to ending this. Glancing back, Mordred’s limp form is only barely visible at the mouth of the cavern, and although he can hardly bear it, Merlin tell himself that this is the only way and forces his head to twist back round.  
It has taken them six months. Six months locked within an obsession, hunting like animals and tracking using the smallest of details. Mordred’s keen senses had not dulled in his time away from the druid community, and their magic made things simpler still. But sixth months is a long time, and Merlin is sure he would have gone quite mad without company. Perhaps he has. He isn’t sure. But between his unquenchable desire to kill these men in cold blood and the aching longing his companion brings, he knows he is an utterly changed man from the boy who escaped the ruins of Camelot all that time ago.  
Holding his breath, he takes a steady, silent step forwards, and rounds a small bend in the rock. Mordred is out of sight now. Merlin finds this oddly relieving.  
At the end of the tunnel, there is a small hollowed-out room of sorts, containing a rectangular wooden table and a roughly-hewn bed. Merlin knows all this without having to look, because Mordred has told him about it.  
This is the room where the scared little boy became a soldier.  
Inside this room sit four men. They have not left since word of Merlin and Mordred reached them. They know what is coming for them.  
They hope that their magic will protect them. But, despite their evil and their twisted minds, they are wise, and they understand what it means to want revenge. What it means to hate, and what it means to lose everything.  
Merlin advances slowly, taking care to make no sound. His hands are steady as they hold the sword, and his face is set. He steps into the room, and waits.  
The men are faced away from him, engrossed in the scrolls that lie on the table. These are not the false papers used to manipulate a child, they are messages and warnings from far and wide, all saying the same thing:  
 _they are coming for you_  
The men are afraid. If Merlin’s sources tell him anything, it’s that.  
They do not seem to notice him at first, but then one of them stiffens, and slowly turns his grey head. His face is carefully emotionless when he meets Merlin’s eyes, but Merlin knows what the man is hiding. These are cruel, twisted people, but they are not fighters. They train little boys in the art of murder to do their dirty work for them, and they know they will not win in combat.  
‘I think you know who I am.’  
His voice is trembling, but he does not drop his gaze. The grey haired one stares back at him, and there is fear in his eyes.  
‘We know who you are, Emrys.’  
They are all stood now.  
‘Will you kill us?’  
They are matter of fact, and their faces are honest, and in any other situation Merlin would have pitied them. But Arthur is dead because of them, Gwen and Leon and Gwaine and Percival and Elyan and so many others are dead because of them, and all it takes is the memory of the cremated baby lying on her father’s torched lap to bring sharp tears to his eyes.  
‘You killed my family,’ he spits, not answering their question. ‘Everyone I loved. And you took a child, a child that had _so much_ ahead of her. And you burned her to death in front of her parents, along with her parents.’  
They do not deny it, and why would they?  
‘You left me with nothing. I was alone, and cold, and afraid. And when a companion did come to me, he was as scarred as I was, because you… you took him, a little boy of nine years old, and you broke him, with knives and burns and so much pain. We have no one but each other any more. And he is lying outside the cavern at this moment, because he could not set eyes on this place for more than a moment without the memories overwhelming him. You are evil to your roots, and you deserve to suffer. So yes, in answer to your question, I am going to kill you. _And I will take pleasure in it._ ’  
Two fat tears roll down his cheeks. His face was wet before, but he didn’t notice he was crying until now.  
Only one of the men draws his knife, and by then it’s too late. Merlin’s eyes flash and it is red hot, scalding his palm, and then they are thrown backwards onto the table. Their heads hit the stone hard, all at the same time, and they lie still, barely conscious. They are, after all, old men, and unable to bear much bodily damage any more.  
He takes small steps towards the table, hardly daring to breathe. This is it, this is it, everything he’s obsessed over the last few months have all lead to this. He can’t quite believe it’s here. Vengeance for the world he lost, for the people he loved, for Mordred’s childhood. All here, about to happen, right now.  
He carefully angles the sword, focuses on the pale throats of these sickening creatures, and –  
His hand shakes, and more tears roll down his cheeks as he realises.  
He can’t do it.  
He cannot make himself bring pain.  
He grits his teeth and his face scrunches in frustration, but he cannot bring the sword down. He is shaking and crying, and trying so hard but his hand will not work. He wants this with every fibre of his being, but some part of him is repulsed by the idea and will not let him, no matter how desperately he tries.  
All for nothing – this cannot be. He cannot give up now, cannot let them leave unscathed when he came _so close_ to avenging everything he needed to. And if not for himself, then for Mordred – the boy he knows he loves, who gave everything to get them here, and lies unconscious from the pain of what these men did to him.  
A shuffling from behind him jerks him round, and his eyes widen as he meets another pair. They are tired, and old, and full of pain. But a familiar hand reaches forwards and takes the sword, eyes never leaving Merlin’s, and then the boy walks around him to the table.  
The deed is done, quickly, with the sense of somebody who is exhausted with all this.  
They walk back down the tunnel in silence. They do not look back.  
***  
Mordred collapses when they reach fresh air. He starts gasping into the leaves, and Merlin simply pulls him into his lap and holds him, because he knows that this is what he needs. He does not mutter words of comfort, or press his lips to dark hair, because that will never help. His mere presence, however, always will.  
Mordred is broken. Merlin knows this. And so is he. This is not something that will just end, now that the men are dead - if anything, it will get worse, because there is nothing else to do about it. Mordred’s nightmares will remain, as will Merlin’s, and they will need each other more than ever. Merlin knows Mordred is not used to needing people, and perhaps it is why he cries. He shudders and his hand, the hand Merlin has come to know so well, clutches at his shoulder, tearing the fabric slightly.  
It doesn’t matter. It’s about time Merlin picked up a new overshirt. It has been clinging to his frame for over half a year, and he’s surprised it hasn’t yet fallen to pieces.  
After a couple of minutes, Mordred is silent again. He sits, and they stare at each other. Neither of them have yet processed that it is over at last, finally, they don’t need to hunt any more. They don’t need to hurt any more.  
And they don’t need to travel together any more.  
Since that day, when Merlin looked into Mordred’s mind and _known_ , since the day they had fallen into one another and loved, separation has never been an option. They know it now, and as they sit and listen to each other breathe, it becomes the only truth.  
The only truth.  
‘You will be the death of me, I hope you know,’ he says, reaching out and laying his hand in the hollow of the ivory skinned neck of his companion. Mordred closes his eyes at the touch, and smiles.  
‘And you me, Emrys.’  
His lips feel like they are on fire as they press to Mordred’s again and again. He breathes him, and holds him, and tears mingle as they scream into each other’s heads that they are _free_. The leaves brush against them, first gently, then not so gently as Merlin pushes Mordred down into the soil and kisses him harder. And in the woods, he finally finds him. Because right now, his mind is brighter and more pure than it has ever been before, and if he thought it was beautiful the first time he saw it then this is breathtakingly stunning in comparison. Every part of him is exposed and loving and Merlin could live for this, he could easily. In fact, now he realises there is little else for him to do, and although the future is cluttered with work and rebuilding and more fighting, for now he lets himself focus his whole energies on saving this, saving the boy beneath him and himself in the process.  
Yes, he thinks he can allow himself this new weakness. If it is even really a weakness at all.  
He inhales deeply as Mordred exhales, finally certain in the knowledge he will be able to breathe now his whole life long.


End file.
